Just Sleep in Your Grave
by Sodium Bicarb
Summary: Vernon Dursley murdered little Harry, but Death just couldn't let the boy be. WARNINGS: Dark themes, death, gore


**Title: **Just Sleep in Your Grave

**Summary: **He may be considered a baby Dementor, but that didn't mean that Fate was done with him.

**Genre: **Supernatural, General

**Tags: **Dark!Harry

* * *

**A/N: **I was really struck by this plot bunny, and really wanted to write it out of my system, so here it is. This will be the shortest chapter, and I'm really sorry because I promised that I would never publish anything less than 5,000 words, but I thought that this ending had a ring of finality to it... so there.

**Disclaimer: **Anything you recognize is not mine.

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**Chapter 1**

Harry Potter survived Voldemort's curse, but not his uncle's fists. Five years after Death let the raven-haired boy go, Death came back again. It took one look at mottled skin and protruding ribs that put Roman noses to shame and knew that his revenge would be given the blind eye.

Death wasn't known as kind or noble, and these cases were far from uncommon, but they were terrible all the same. And these tortured souls, he knew, would take lifetimes to purify, and even then, the taint of betrayal would remain on their skin, in the form of birth marks or childhood scars.

This boy was different, though. He felt Fate's downy shroud around him, obscuring the boy's existence, but in lieu of the beatings and the boy's own wish for death, that shroud slipped, and as long as Death didn't stare straight at the soul, he could make out it's form. It was like this with the other great heroes that seemed nigh invincible.

Once upon a time, Fate had been especially favorable to the Greeks and Romans. And he was young then, back when Achilles and Perseus were granted their shroud. He took great pleasure in waiting for it to slip so that he could wrap his bony fingers around their souls, but he was older now still young by Fate's standards, but old and wise enough to know when to let the heroes go and when their time was ripe.

This boy still had years left to go, and Death would not be the poor rookie who culled Fate's... _unpleasant_... anger. So, he waited. He waited above the house, instructed his minions as he corralled the boy's sleeping soul to his side, and waited patiently as the humans below him shrieked and panicked. Three days they pretended that murder had not been completed and for three days they sent their son away.

"We'll take a trip to the coast and throw him off there!" Vernon decided for the twentieth time, but again Petunia fervently shook her head.

"They could be watching us, Vernon!" she replied hysterically, lowering her voice as if wizards were just beyond the window and listening in. She was surprised that the wizards hadn't barged into her home just yet, but she wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"The backyard then," the man stated and went to grab his shovel. This time, he made it to be back door.

His wife sniffled, but nodded. She would sacrifice her beautiful garden to make this… _situation..._go away.

"I'll tell the neighbors that I'm planting some new flowers... And we never took the boy out, so no one will ever know..." a determined glint entered her eyes.

Death smirked as he watched them dig a quick, shallow grave, and outright laughed when they started to pray to God. Sinners always made the most entertaining justifications, just as Petunia justified their actions with comments that the boy wasn't _natural_, wasn't _human_...

Death shook his head and held the boy's soul close. He was awake now, a tad disoriented. "You're dead, Harry," he informed the child. The boy tilted his head.

Death sighed.

"That's your name. Not 'boy;' not 'freak.' It's _Harry_."

"... Dead like my mum and dad? Do I... Do I get to see them?" He asked curiously. Being dead, apparently, was not a shock or a priority to the boy.

Death responded curtly.

"I doubt you will ever see them again..." The souls who took the deals he offered would either stay alive in their decomposing bodies or they would turn into Dementors. They would never journey to the after-life.

"...But you still have a godfather who would no doubt be glad to see you," he continued gently after reminding himself that he was speaking with a child.

"R-r-really? Is he… is he a drunk like my parents?" The boy asked quietly. Death observed how the boy's ghostly form blurred as those thin shoulders shook. Little Harry was afraid that his godfather was going to drink until he was drunk and beat him like his uncle did.

"Yes, you have a godfather, and no, he is not a drunk. Your parents weren't either." He had forgotten how easily influenced children were.

"B-b-but Aun-"

"What your Aunt has told you and what the truth is, are likely two very different things," came Death's sharp rebuttal.

* * *

Death waited a week before the Others finalized their verdict. He could not change the fact that the boy died, that as they waited, his mortal body decayed, flesh and bone being taken away. If he could, Death would stuff the boy's soul back into his physical body immediately, before deterioration progressed too far, but even Death had rules to follow (or what would keep him from causing the Dursleys to drop death where they stood?). So at the end of the week, Death made his move.

It was early evening: Vernon and Dudley were in front of the telly while Petunia bustled in the kitchen. She gazed fondly at her prize-winning tulips and the beautiful sunset, but a small movement caught her eye.

"Not moles again," she muttered to herself as she grabbed the broom by the door. A mess of raven-colored hair peeked from behind her door frame.

All of her denials came flooding back.

"Hello Aunt Petunia."

Petunia shrieked at the soft-spoken boy. She eyed his worm-gnawed eye sockets (from the worm- abundant rich soil of her garden), and the insect-chewed rags that barely hid the stunted skeleton. She shifted to the side so that the edge of the counter obscured her vision of the boy's half-eaten organs

If... if only her sister hadn't been one of _them!_If only she had been normal! Then she wouldn't have died because of a maniac and then this boy wouldn't have been dumped on them and then she wouldn't have committed those atrocities!

Her gut twisted again, and Petunia had a crazy moment where she nearly reached for the kitchen knife and wondered if she could stop this hellion if she sliced through his ligaments and he couldn't relay his message or return to tell the Devil.

"He wants to speak with Uncle Vernon, please." He gazed at her with unblinking eyes.

'_Oh__God,__oh__God,__oh__God.__The __Devil __was __coming.__This __was __the__ end;__where __was __her __Bible?'_

"I'll bring him here," she shakily replied. She tried to stall the panic rising in her heart, but her arms shook so hard that bristles fell from the broom in her hands.

"Do you... Do you want to come inside?" If she could weasel a little more time; perhaps find some Bibles or call the priest...

"He says that he's getting impatient, Aunt," the boy said. Petunia finally realized how his voice didn't seem to come entirely from his boy. It came from around her, as if his voice was in the surrounding air.

It took her a second to realize that Vernon undoubtedly destroyed the boy's voice box when he strangled him, and this was the Devil's way of bypassing that problem.

"Vernon!" she called out. The happier she kept the Devil, the lighter their punishment might be.

"Not now, Pet!"

"_N__o__w_, Vernon!"

She glanced nervously at the boy, who still stood silently in the doorway.

She saw Vernon's shadow move as he let out an exasperated sigh and came into the kitchen, and the moment he took a step through the doorway, a tall, dark man materialized beside the boy, brushing off imaginary lint from his suit.

"Ah. Vernon Dursley, just the man I needed to see."

The blood drained from her husband's face as he caught sight of the boy. Petunia felt the air die in her lungs as the repugnant scent of roadkill filled her kitchen.

"Do close your mouth, Mr. Dursley. There are plenty of flies in here to fill it," the man admonished.

Vernon spluttered.

"Now, I happen to be on a tight schedule; there's a genocide at noon that I simply cannot leave to my minions, and if this... discussion... we're about to have takes until then, the poor boy's chin is liable to fall off," and at that the man cupped the boy's chin. The section of skin covering the jaw fell into his hand.

The man tisked. Petunia held back bile.

"Now, as Death, I cannot restore life to a person; that's not my power, but a soul like yours, no matter how disgusting, has the markers to keep his body from completely decomposing, at least, for the moment." The man flicked a wrist lazily.

Vernon's face quickly turned a shade of puce.

"See here!" he bellowed, but the dark man gave him an unimpressed stare.

"I just told you that I don't have the timeto deal with your nonsense, Mr. Dursley, so take care not to wear my patience away. As I see it, since you murdered the boy, it is only fitting that you become his first kill as well."

"I I-don't -"

"This is what will happen if you do not immediately comply. Every Sunday someone you know will die until the police suspect that you are the murderer, and once they send you to jail, every one of your family members and friends will die, and after I have murdered every one of them, I will kill you slowly, one organ at a time, and when your ashes have been scattered, the only memory of you will be as the most prolific murderer in all of Europe.

Do you understand, Vernon Dursley? That I have the sanction of any gods you feel like praying to. That they agreed to let me make your life hell and make those around you regret every moment they have ever been in your presence. That they all agreed that if you could do this _one_, _selfless act_, your family and reputation would be spared, and that I agreed because I knew that you would not, seeing your track record as a self-serving pig. So you see, Mr. Dursley, that it is in my best interest that you fail, but that I am generous enough to give you a chance," Death finished calmly, his bone bone-thin fingers tapping on the counter.

Petunia's head swiveled between Vernon and the Devil in horror. She knew that her husband would never willing agree, that he would try to run, but he didn't know what _magic _was capable of, never mind deities!

No. If Petunia was going to survive this encounter, _she _would have to act, even if she had to kill-

Death smiled at her.

"Is that so, Mrs. Dursley. How about I amend my agreement with your husband? Let's say..." he tapped his chin, "...let's say that if you can murder your husband in cold blood in the next minute or so, I will consider it a noble sacrifice and alter his cause of death to heart attack so that your son and yourself will not be suspected? And with that sacrifice you'll have a contract with me, I'm afraid, but nothing gruesome..."

"C-contract?" she asked.

"Just a standard contract much like that between a human and a summoned demon. You are free to live your life up until a certain point, usually after a set amount of years, but for you..." his pointer finger stroked her forehead. She hadn't noticed his movement,

"For you, I shall let you live until..." his gaze flickered. "...until I die."

And honestly, if there was a day when Death _died_, well, she didn't want to be alive then anyways.

Blood sprayed from Vernon's mouth as Petunia stuck him with a kitchen knife, once, twice, but the blade barely pierced his organs with all the fat in the way. She tried again, and her eyes weren't crazed or frenzied as she stabbed her husband; they were determined. She backed away as he tried to bowl into her, and with his lowered center of gravity, it would be twice as hard to bowl him over (as if she had a good chance in the first place).

"Pet!"

She ignored his bellow and evaded his meaty hands. There were slices in his arm, but nothing threatening.

Vernon tried to charge at her again, in hopes of knocking her over and pinning the arm with the knife down but she saw her chance. Just as he grabbed her around the middle, she plunged the knife into his brain stem.

Death took a moment to appreciate the silence, to gaze at the splatters of blood as if they were the constellations in the sky, and to glaze over the smaller splatters like far away stars. No matter how gruesome his job, there was always beauty in it.

In the middle of the room, above the Cassiopeia splatter, Death snatched Vernon's soul. It was a milky, writhing thing, like a living Milky Way. The soul squirmed in his grasp, and where Death's hand touched it, the soul solidified until Death could hand it to Harry like an ice cream cone.

"Eat up," he instructed.

The boy opened his jaw wide and swallowed it in two swallows.

Petunia ignored them and washed her hands and face in the sink.

Dudley, unsurprisingly, remained in the living room, the loud laughter of nighttime telly drowning out the cries of his father.

* * *

Death told him that there were a lot of rules that Harry had to follow if he wanted to stay alive, and that Rule #1 was that either Harry ate souls or he became something called a 'Dee-men-torr.'

"Fresh souls will re-energize your body," Death explained. "A newly detached soul has enough life-force in it to fool your body that it's still alive, but not enough that the soul will take over your body. The more energy you exert, the more frequently you need to consume a soul. That won't matter much now since you're young, but it's best for you to know now and avoid major problems later."

"What… what if I don't want to eat souls?" he asked quietly. Uncle Vernon's soul went down his throat like a slimy snail, and it wasn't something that Harry wanted to experience often.

Death gave him a flat look.

"Then you'll end up as a Dementor."

"What's that?"

"Just souls like you who have lost their way, child, but people do not like them."

"Why?" the boy asked curiously.

Death observed the war beneath him.

"Because human beings often fear that which are not them. They do not understand that variation occurs in this world and that in the eyes of what they consider evil, they are just as evil."

"...but you said that Voldemort was evil. Does that mean that he thinks we're evil?"

Harry smiled shyly at Death's approving gaze.

"Your Dark Lord did not rise into power without having the backing of many men and women. To the Light, he is evil, but to the Dark, he was a beacon of hope."

"Then what am I? I can't be 'Light' because I'm dead, right? And I have to fight Voldemort..." Harry trailed off. The boy's tiny fingers clutched at Death's pant leg as the man sliced through another soul.

"That designation is between you and Fate. Now, hold out your hold," and in it, Death put a glass ball in Harry's hand. Inside, a gold wisp twitched.

"I thought you said that I wouldn't need another soul for a while!" Harry questioned petulantly. It was clear that the idea of soul-stealing disturbed him.

"What you will find, Harry," Death chuckled, "is that Fate is never idle."

* * *

Sirius Black saw a sliver of a boy with Lily's eyes and immediately wondered if he cracked or died. Then a man with Death's own mask in his hand appeared, and Sirius closed his eyes in resignation.

"You are not dead, Grim," the dark man snorted. "Now, revert back to your human form; the Dementors will not bother you, and the child cannot understand you in this form." The mask was tucked into his robe pocket.

"H-h-hello, Mr. Black." Tiny Lily child bowed his head.

"N...ne...nev..never... not... father..." Sirius rasped. He tried to clear his throat, but found it devoid of saliva.

"Ohoho! Is wittle little traitor talking to himself again?!" came the chorusing voices of the prisoners, freshly awoken from the newcomers' echoing voices.

Harry shuffled closer to Death, who nodded once and then the duo were inside Sirius's cell. Then the man nudged the boy towards him, and Sirius shook as the boy stood awkwardly in front of him.

He was too afraid to hug the boy in case he was a figment of his imagination, but Death's tutting convinced him.

"Oh...Harry. I'm... so sorry," he sobbed. He clutched the boy's rags (rags! Where had the boy been?), and tentatively, Harry hugged him back. The pressure felt foreign and it hurt Sirius's damaged skin, but Sirius didn't cry out. This was his first human contact in years, and he was going to make it last.

The voices outside grew louder as more prisoners woke.

"A guest! A guest! Come to break the traitor out!"

"Wittle Potty is Az-kaban!"

Sirius watched the other man glide towards the hollering cells.

"Do you want me to rescue you, my dears?" Death cooed as he passed the cells.

Bellatrix cackled and battled the few eyelashes she had left.

"Of course! I'd do _anything_," she purred back, loud enough to be heard above the other cries. On either side of her, the Lestrange brothers cackled.

The man smiled, and for a moment, Sirius was afraid that Bellatrix would be free, that there was no reason for him _not _to set her free.

The man caressed her cheek through the bars and whispered, "Come to me."

Bellatrix's body slumped to the ground.

The other inmates stopped their yelling.

The man turned on his heel, his grey eyes transitioning to the same Avada Kedvra shade as Harry's.

"Is anyone else here foolish enough to plead for Death to take them? For you to enter my cold embrace?" The corridor remained silent.

"How unfortunate," he tutted. "I'm always in want of new _Dementors_." At his words, the prisoners shuddered. Almost as if they had been summoned, the rolling cold of the Dementors swept the corridor, even if the beings themselves couldn't been seen.

"So you _are_ Death," Sirius stated when the man came back. He held Harry close to him, his thin arms attempting to shield an even thinner back.

Death raised an eyebrow and subtly tapped the skeletal mask in his pocket.

Sirius blushed.

"I thought that you might have been a minion, or a rogue minion. But you're really Death... What are you doing with Harry?" Sirius asked cautiously.

Death hummed.

"You could ask Vernon Dursley since he knows first-hand, but since he's dead, you'll have to ask Petunia Dursley instead."

"Lily's magic-hating sister?! What was he doing with them!?" Sirius bellowed. He stood shakily, and Death gave him a cross stare, like one would give to a petulant child.

"Do calm down, Grim. Harry has no use for you dead, and I've resolved the Dursley issue."

Sirius felt blood slide down his throat; his yelling had irritated the dry throat until it cracked, and if he irritated the wound more, it was liable to drown him.

"As you must have deduced by now, you charge is dead-" yes, Sirius smelled the death on the boy, "-but with Fate's blessing, I have reanimated his body. His soul and mind are the same; I have not changed the person inside, so no need to make that face, dog, but the boy requires a guardian. As Death, I have numerous duties to attend to, especially in this day and age, and do not have the time to watch over him. I will, however, be monitoring his progress, and should his health decline, Grim, I will take pleasure in forfeiting your life-"

"I would never!"

"Yes, yes. As of your grandfather's passing, you are now Lord Black, and as such you have inherited the manors, and most importantly, you have inherited the manors that have necromatic summoning chambers. Those will allow you to call me if an emergency with the child occurs, and should it be necessary, the Black Library and those chambers will allow you to become a necromancer."

"Me?! Why?" Sirius looked stunned. "Shouldn't Harry become one?"

"And use what for his sacrifice? His stagnant blood? His fragile soul, held together only by the mercy of the Others and astral link of Death which any Inferi or demon can see and target? No, Grim. Should the worst case scenario occur, you will need to become a necromancer and summon Harry back to life forcefully, even if it meant that his soul would be tied to your will," Death finished.

Sirius looked at the unblinking boy in his arms, who already looked so detached from the world. "Alright. I'll do it. I'll become a necromancer."

"_Maybe_. It is currently not necessary, but are you sure, Grim? It is what you humans consider the 'Darkest Arts,'" Death sneered.

Sirius sneered back.

"It'll probably make Mother happy, but... I can't lose Harry; he's all I have." He pet the boy's hair fondly and frowned at the dirt in his hair.

The boy had been buried. Sirius knew this, but...

He brushed away the rest of the dirt and when a maggot fell from the boy's unruly bangs, Sirius smiled and plucked some lice from his scalp.

"Looks like we're both in need of a bath, Prongslet," he chuckled. Harry's eyes brightened.

"Prongslet?"

Sirius ruffled the boy's head again.

"I'll tell you when we get... home." He looked at Death. "Are you taking us to one of the Black estates, or will I have to manually break out."

"Luckily for us, you are a Grim. As such, I can transport you with no difficulty." Death grabbed their shoulders and the trio disappeared into the shadows of the patrolling Dementors.

* * *

'_Sirius __Black __Escapes __Azkaban! __Ministry __Baffled!'_

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**_A/N: _**So I may repost this with a longer version if I can think of a better ending/more to add, but as of now, I just _really_ needed to post this and get it out of my system. Please review if you have time so I can see how much interest this story has.

Thank you.


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